Neil Nitin Mukesh masturbation scene from Jail chopped

Neil Nitin Mukesh has the distinction of being the first mainstream hero to do a masturbation scene for Madhur Bhandarkar's Jail. Says the actor, "Frankly, if it was any other director, I'd have said no. But knowing the way Madhur depicts explicit sexual scenes, I said yes."
The wanking sequence was shot with 450 other actors present on the set. Neil recalls, "All the inmates are asleep when I do it. Now, most of the scene has been chopped off. But we still see the character doing it." All that remains now is the suggestion of his 'happy alone' time.
By mutual consent
A portion of the sequence was voluntarily removed from the film even before it was presented to the Censor Board. Says Neil, "Honestly, after Madhur and I shot it, we found we had gone too far. It was too explicit. It was just not going with Indian aesthetics. So we decided to knock it off quite a bit by mutual consent. We just wondered if the flow of the narration would be hampered."
That's not only sexually explicit sequence Neil has participated in for Jail. "In one sequence, I go in the night to the bath and see one boy performing oral sex on another. I interrupt them and one of them says, 'You had to come and spoil the fun!' While we agreed to remove dialogue the scene of oral sex remains."
Not titillating
About his bold scenes, Neil says, "My nude or masturbation scenes are not for titillation. It's a very practical need in the script. My character is in Jail without sex for 2 ½ years. What does he do? He naturally seeks pleasure by himself. In the scene that we shot, my character fantasises about his girlfriend and gets his gratification. Even the love-making scene with Mugdha (Godse) has been aesthetically shot."
offbeat pleasure
Neil Nitin Mukesh may be the first mainstream Indian start to masturbate on screen. But on a more offbeat note, Rahul Bose had pleasured himself way back in 1994 in Dev Benegal's English, August. Back then, it was referred to in the film as "self-abuse", a perverted practice that the film's bureaucrat hero Agastya repeatedly indulged in out of sheer boredom. Rahul who had also been part of gay love scenes in Bomgay, later said it was no big deal since any bored single man would do the same.